


14; 336

by Shaitanah



Category: Being Human
Genre: Angst, Experimental, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Two weeks ago a werewolf was killed.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	14; 336

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : _Being Human_ belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.   
> **A/N** : Seriously _weird_ experimental structure. You’ve been warned.

And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is after all where this train is going.

Bruce Catton

Every event gives rise to an infinite number of possibilities.

This is how things could have gone:

i.

In this world, George never went to Scotland. He never became a werewolf. He married Julia and they lived happily ever after. It was a happy world and it was never going to happen.

ii.

In this world, George did go to Scotland. He didn’t survive the attack. It was still a happy world. For some.

iii.

In this world, George went on holiday and met a chatty American bloke who invited himself along for a walk around the Scottish countryside. George would never forget the smell of his blood as his insides were ripped open.

This is how things could have gone from here:

iv.

George could have stayed at home. He would have probably flipped out at some point and massacred his family. And Julia. Afterwards, he would have killed himself.

v.

George left. He met Julia again at the hospital in Bristol. She wanted to know what he was hiding. She followed him down to the room in the basement and witnessed his transformation. He killed her.

(“Or,” Mitchell points out, “you could have just scared her off.” Mitchell always looks on the bright side of life. Except when his own transgressions are being laid bare.)

vi.

He never saw Julia again. In fact, he discovered he was gay. For Mitchell.

(“I knew it,” Annie says. “Told you you should just snog each other.”

“Don’t think so,” George says. He can’t deal with his own baggage, let alone Mitchell’s.)

vii.

He never met Mitchell and got killed by vampires. 

Or: he met Mitchell and they both got killed by vampires.

(“Is he always this optimistic?” Annie asks. She doesn’t know either of them well enough yet.

“Yeah,” says Mitchell.)

viii.

They never met Annie. 

(“I don’t like this story,” Annie interrupts.

“Me neither,” George admits, years later.)

ix.

_Nina._

Even thinking the name hurts.

This is how it could have been with Nina:

x.

Never meeting Nina doesn’t happen. From now on, there is no possible world without Nina. Nina is set in stone. Nina is the written word that remains. _My Nina_ , he whispers, breathes out with his entire being, and feels her respond. His Nina. She comes back to him every time. 

It’s a happy world in spite of all the suffering. It’s the happiest of all the worlds.

xi. 

Nina is the constant factor, the permanence, but other details might change. There is Mitchell not falling in love with Lucy. There is Lucy never planting the bomb at the funeral parlour. There is Ivan never dying and Mitchell never going on a killing spree with Daisy. There is Annie never getting imprisoned in Purgatory. There is Herrick never coming back to life. There is Nina never getting pregnant. All of that is connected.

xii.

Once, Herrick kills Nina and the baby inside her. They’re all dead afterwards because nothing matters anymore.

(Annie cries when he tells her.)

xiii.

Eve is fourteen. She is going to be taller than her Mum. She has her father’s linguistic talent and her mother’s infinite compassion. She is adventurous and a bit naïve like Uncle Tom and fiercely loyal like Auntie Annie. She makes a bloody good cup of tea. 

(“This one is my favourite,” Annie says.

“She could be a barrister,” Tom suggests. It’s a bit early for career choices. He shrugs. “Just sayin’. Barrister’s classy. She’d be dead classy.”

_Dead_ isn’t really the word George wants to hear in conjunction with his daughter.)

George takes her to the seafront and tells her about Mitchell. He tries to imagine what his life would have been like if he had never met Mitchell. He understands that he wouldn’t have had her. 

(“It’s not perfect,” Annie says. There is a veil of sorrow about her now, a perpetual shroud of mourning for the lost lover. But she goes on. For George and his family. “But it’s what we have.”)

Eve says she wishes she had known him. George says, yes, and thinks that things couldn’t have gone any other way with Mitchell. Not this time.

It’s a happy world. They all get ice-cream.

* * *

What really happens is this:

**XIV**

In a room full of crucifixes and tea mugs, George says, tired with grief: “You hardly knew Nina.”

All the scenarios are dancing in his head. 

Tom replies: “I knew her enough.”

Two weeks ago, George would have wondered: how much is enough to want to avenge a person’s death? Or is vengeance just a decent thing to do in this case? 

Now, he keeps silent as Annie drags Tom away. He watches the moving pictures in his head, thinks of all the ways he could have screwed up, of all the fixed points in his personal timeline. He can’t look at the door. The last time he saw Nina, she was standing in the doorway, so utterly beautiful that he–

The image is seared into his memory. It’s the only way he remembers her now.

He goes downstairs just in time to hear Annie say: “I don’t know what we are now. I don’t know what I am.” He could tell her stories, but he is too tired to console anybody. He will take what Tom has to offer because it’s better than nothing. Maybe later, they will talk.

He opens the kitchen door (there are so many doors in this house; he’s only just noticed) and says:

“Let’s do it.”

And that’s how things go from here on out.

_October 2, 2012_


End file.
